Landscape with Man Pushing a Cart 

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe created this print, Landscape with Man Pushing a Cart, using etching techniques during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a time marked by significant social and economic shifts in Europe. Kolbe, working in a society deeply structured by class, presents us with a pastoral scene, yet one that subtly reveals the social realities of labor. The figures, dwarfed by the landscape, are engaged in physical toil. Kolbe’s choice to focus on their labor invites us to consider the lives of those who worked the land, their identities often reduced to their roles in the agrarian economy. The image is not merely a serene depiction of nature, but a commentary on the relationship between humans and their environment, shaped by economic necessity and social hierarchy. Kolbe's work exists in a complicated space, seemingly celebrating the natural world while also documenting the realities of labor within it. It prompts us to reflect on the intersections of class, labor, and our relationship to the environment.